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The Seminary Bubble

Imagine an institution that requires its leaders to attend not only college, but graduate school. Imagine that the graduate school in question is constitutionally forbidden from receiving any form of government aid, that it typically requires three years of full-time schooling for the diploma, that the nature of the schooling bears almost no resemblance to the job in question, and that the pay for graduates is far lower than other professions. You have just imagined the relationship between the Christian Church and her seminaries.

Mainline churches are nearly universal in their requirement that their Priests/Pastors/Ministers/Reverends be seminary graduates, and since seminary is a graduate school, this means the students must first be successful undergraduates. So take all of the arguments about a college bubble and add at least three years of tuition cost and forgone income.

But you’re not quite done: My friend Father Jay Geisler counsels seminary students. He tells me that in his experience roughly half of matriculated students do not graduate within three years. In addition, he tells me that the living costs tend to be higher for seminary students than for undergrads because undergrads are almost never married with children, but seminary students often are. As such, dorm room type accommodations for grads will not do.

In addition, incomes for late 20- and early 30-somethings with wife and child tend to be higher than the traditional undergraduate-age student, so the opportunity costs — meaning the lost earnings — are considerably higher. Father Geisler tells me that he commonly sees young men graduate from seminary $60,000 or $70,000 in debt with few employment options other than very low-pay youth minister positions. It’s often even worse for women in conservative denominational traditions in which female ordination is still controversial.

And the prospects are worse clergy than for other forms of professional education, because there is no legal seminary requirement which stifles professional competition. If you go to medical school, you know you’ll have challenges in the job market, but at least you know you won’t be competing with non-medical school graduate physicians. Ditto for law school; it’s illegal to practice law or medicine without the requisite graduate schooling. Other professions, such as CPA and engineer, require at least the four-year diploma.

If you graduate from seminary and become an Episcopal priest, the church almost certainly required that you get the degree, but there’s no guarantee that increasingly indifferent churchgoers won’t, at the drop of a hat, leave your church and move a few blocks down the street to attend a Pentecostal, charismatic or fundamentalist church led by a high school dropout with generous dollops of the gift of gab, no school loans and probably less overhead. Interestingly enough, statistics indicate that these less “professional” churches are growing and the top-heavy cousins are rapidly shrinking.

Historian and sociologist Rodney Stark finds that the historical pattern fits the current one. Decentralized church systems with a history of less formal schooling historically outperform top-heavy ones with heavy academic requirements.

Part of this is politics. Mainline churches have largely become local versions of the Green Party at prayer. Leftie fads long ago captured the commanding heights of the established denominations. In fact, they did it through the seminaries. So, clergy moved left, members moved out, and mainline churches became mixtures of union halls, encounter groups and mausoleums.

Non-’professional’ church traditions didn’t have the luxury of indulging in ideological tourism. The ministers there live by the weekly collection plate.

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If you talk to any serving pastor about seminary and ask them “What percentage of your classmates had no business being in seminary?” you’ll get a response from 1/4 to 1/2 of them.

While seminaries should definitely alter their curriculum to be more practical, many are unethical in admitting students who should never be in ministry. Many prestigious undergrad schools require an interview prior to admission, but most seminaries do not. In fact, most seminaries are struggling to find enough students to pay the bills and thus have an incentive to admit students with serious personal and moral issues that will limit their finding employment in any faith-based work. Similarly, a good percentage of seminarians are there because they don’t know what else to do in life and have a hard time comprehending that faith work will require a higher standard of personal integrity than any other field.

Thanks for the article. I’m in ministry, called by God, no support or ordination but serving as faithfully as possible ; ) That said, I disagree with those that are saying that seminary education needs to change in the sense that it isn’t relative to one’s walk with Christ–should they not become employed as a result of the investment. We should all continue to seek God’s plan and Will for our life, including stepping faithfully into seminary journeys that result in spiritual or intellectual growth (the result of several years of seminary study ; )

I do agree wholeheartedly that seminary is incredibly prohibitive financially, I wrestle with this truth daily as I plan my continued education and service within Jesus church. As this article brings into light, the journey is filled with challenges that we can all connect on when serving.

I also agree with Sarah about women in ministry; however, I don’t think the point of this article, no matter how male-centered, is changed whether the seminarian is female or male, Presbyterian or non-denominational etc. Having sat and listened for many years to men dominated Sunday sermons, within multiple types of denominations, I do admit it used to feel a little weird being preached to by a woman — I reserve strong admonition for men not stepping up to the role but certainly have seen amazing giftedness within women preachers and gifted lay speakers over the years. Thus, I know that the gift of gab or theology isn’t, at all, reserved for men ;) To this I challenge men to step up but applaud women for listening to God’s call. I also applaud every seminarian. Don’t stop seeking truth, regardless of the “employment” opportunities!

I’m not sure how this conversation became a gender one, except that one early comment decided to bring gender politics into a discussion where there were none present. But to your bigger point: yes, it is God who calls and He who ordains. Graduate schools are an optional means of training, not an essential one.

Thanks for this article, as one who has been in pastoral ministry over 30 years and currently chairing our adjudicatory’s committee on ordination I find this article to be asking the correct questions dealing with today’s church. In a mainline denomination such as the one I am affiliated we have just switched from requiring a seminary education to now requiring a seminary education or its equivalent. It is up to us to decide what the proper equivalent is. We are also seeing a major shift in seminary education from on site classroom education to online education. While such a program may not be cheaper for the student it does enable the student to connect with a school of their denomination without changing locations. One school in our area has gone to almost all evening classes to accommodate working second career students. One of the valuable thing I received from my seminary education was the interaction with other students as we talked in the student lounge and commons area of the campus. I saw that as a part of the learning experience that I would have missed having been on line (if it had been available). Another shift in seminary education is more students are not seeking to enter pastoral ministry but another form of ministry outside the church. In addition seminaries and denominations such as ours require psychological evaluation of students and candidates in order to weed out those not suited for ministry. I do understand why seminaries are going on line with more and more classes and it is simple survival. I do question the extent in which students are receiving the best training for the future of the church. As for the person in the article who waited until right before graduation to enter the pulpit, that was a huge mistake on his behalf, his sponsoring congregation and his denomination. We were required to have preaching experiences as a part of the education, preaching class and field work. To wait that long for a first time experience show a lack of support for that student.

Mr. Bowyer has given voice to a urgent concern for the nurturing of church leaders in our times. In response to the primary issues of “high cost, long time commitment, limited ministry experience, and the burden on families” our church embarked upon a ministry training model that still takes three years but graduates seminarians without adding to their debt. The program is described at http://www.faithlafayette.org/seminary, and to date we’ve graduated two cohorts. Except for the students who relocate to serve as interns (‘apprentices’) in our church, the geographic service area is constrained by commuting distance. However, many well-established churches should be able to duplicate the model to serve churches in their regional/theological circles.